With Tapes, a Jewish Group Gains Notice

By DON VAN NATTA Jr.

Published: December 15, 1995

Before this week, the Jewish Action Alliance was noticed only occasionally by the mainstream news media, usually for its attacks on a wide-ranging list of targets, including Louis Farrakhan, Mayor David N. Dinkins and Attorney General Janet Reno.

But this week, the organization emerged at the forefront of the controversy swirling around last week's fire at Freddy's clothing store in Harlem, which killed eight people. The group had recorded the radio comments of the Rev. Al Sharpton and Morris Powell, who are heard sharply condemning its owner, who is white and Jewish, for his plans to evict a black subtenant.

As a result of those tapes, the two men have been accused of stoking the tensions that led to the burning of the store.

The release of tapes of the radio appearances has proven an unforeseen public relations bonanza for the nascent group.

"Our phone has not stopped ringing," Beth Gilinsky, the alliance's founder and president, said in an interview last night. Ms. Gilinsky, who turned the tapes over to the police, has called for a Federal racketeering investigation of Mr. Sharpton, Mr. Powell and others.

"This is not simply about the phrase, 'white interloper,' " she said, referring to the term used by Mr. Sharpton. "This is about a long-term campaign of vicious hatred that was carried on by Al Sharpton and his National Action Network and the people associated with him."

But the alliance has drawn a chorus of critics, who question the group's credo that it is a protector of "Jewish civil and human rights and the struggle against anti-Semitism, hatred and bigotry." Some object to the group's attacks on well-established Jewish organizations. The group opposes the Jewish-Palestinian peace process, most recently boycotting the memorial honoring the assassinated Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, which was held Sunday at Madison Square Garden.

"Beth Gilinsky and her group do their thing their way," said Alexander H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "I have no problem with that, except I have always had difficulty understanding their need to attack other Jewish organizations."

Others suggest the Alliance focuses too much of its energies on Jewish-black relations. Some people also object to the group's tactics, which have included Ms. Gilinksy's pointing her finger at Ms. Reno and shouting in her face.

Ms. Gilinsky attributed the criticism to a misunderstanding of the group, which she said has nearly 10,000 members and hundreds of active volunteers, although some critics have expressed doubts about those figures.

The group was born in the months after the Crown Heights racial violence of August 1991. Ms. Gilinsky was then making a documentary film about the disturbances, and her outrage, she said, became the seeds for the organization.

"What really got me going was the passivity and the silence and the inability to act by the established Jewish community," she said. "I found that terrifying."